Wouldn't normally just message you but this is a throwaway and I'll probably delete it before you see it.

So much of what you wrote is everything I want to hear but with a twist. If i was the one that left i could write very similar accounts and subsequent feelings.

One year ago I was left by someone that was abusive but not overtly. I couldn't leave her but in the end when my well of support ran dry because my own hardships began to take place over years, she left for greener pastures. She was just like the one you had to leave from what you write.

I wish I had your courage to have left before it destroyed me and us. But i stuck it out only to be made to feel like I was the bad guy for holding on. Instead of leaving a heartfelt memory in the absence, now for both of us there's only a black hole of pain for years. She blindsided me so bad I lost my mind amidst subsequent life events and now I'm the crazy person who feels the way you do even though we chose different paths.

So, if it's consolation, you did a good thing for someone. But you did what you had to, for you in the end. It doesn't make you a monster or bad or anything. Be glad you can look back and still care from a distance and not look back with a veil of shame and remorse over it.

Right down to the notes and the drawings my friend. It really does shatter the heart to remember it all.

I would give anything to know she felt the way you do but I only have the last conversation we ever had to go off and that was horrible.

Cherish the fact that you have bittersweet feelings instead of hate in retrospect my friend.